The
NYTimes has an article about that wee hours amber alert I mentioned
yesterday, saying that I was not the only one awakened by this, explaining how
the system works, and discussing whether a late-night alert is really advisable
(thanks j.c.f.). It also tells us that the missing child that inspired the alert was
found, so there's good news there, and in fairness, the amber alert played a
part in this (albeit during the day when people were awake), so one can't
complain about the results. There's also a post about this on
Buzzfeed (thanks nin) including this explanation from the powers-that-be:
"It truly is a city that never sleeps. There are always tons of people on the
road. It makes perfect sense to send this out." So their actual intent wasn't to
wake up the millions of us who were asleep, it was for people to read on their
cell phones while driving that night. Okay, as long as they thought this all the
way through.

Mr. Tact wrote on Jul 19, 2013, 08:45:Can you silence the Amber alerts but not the weather alerts? That's what I would do in that situation if possible. Considering the amount of time I am either in my house or at work and my general habit of truly ignoring random people, Amber alerts would be wasted on me, but weather...

Yeh there's the option to turn off the Amber but to leave Emergency. Emergency covers at least flooding and tornado, I imagine it's also there for any big-time emergencies the government deems fit. Like if a nuke plant exploded in your state or something.

I'd already turned my Amber alert one off though.

Those alert tones are loud as hell. They went off by us the other week when we had that huge down-pour and tornado warnings. It scared a bunch of us in the office, and my co-worker was driving to work when it went off and startled him enough to affect his driving.

-

"Space. It seems to go on and on forever. But then you get to the end and a gorilla starts throwing barrels at you." -Fry, Futurama

Can you silence the Amber alerts but not the weather alerts? That's what I would do in that situation if possible. Considering the amount of time I am either in my house or at work and my general habit of truly ignoring random people, Amber alerts would be wasted on me, but weather...

Mashiki Amiketo wrote on Jul 18, 2013, 18:25:New study finds it too soon to tell if ice sheet loss is accelerating? But here I thought that they had this all figured out already, haven't they been saying that along with DoooM and DOOOOM and DOOOOOOOOOOM for the last 25 years?

Oh they've been saying it a lot longer than that. Particularly if you were a follower of Thulsa Doom.

"We choose the right to be who we are. We know the difference between the reality of freedom and the illusion of freedom."

New study finds it too soon to tell if ice sheet loss is accelerating? But here I thought that they had this all figured out already, haven't they been saying that along with DoooM and DOOOOM and DOOOOOOOOOOM for the last 25 years?

--"For every human problem, there is a neat, simple solution; and it is always wrong." --H.L. Mencken

InBlack wrote on Jul 18, 2013, 09:53:Kosher lube for oral sex...hmmmm... Why would anyone use lube for oral sex??

Flavored lubes. There's tons of different lubes for all kinds of stuff, and yes, including oral. Get thee to ye olde sex shoppe sometime and get an education! The women in your life will thank you for it. A I have a FWB that's down with the flavoured oral lubes.

And on a personal note I'd like to say....

It's about time! A good pastrami on rye I can get anywhere, but can I get some kosher lube? Is this too much to ask? Oi vey!

Edit: Oh yeah, and shouldn't that gas be coming out of the Milky Way's black hole? Hi-oh!

"We choose the right to be who we are. We know the difference between the reality of freedom and the illusion of freedom."

Does anyone else find it odd that the Amber Alert covered from the city to maybe 60 to 75 miles north, but they didn't even bother with the bordering counties in NJ? I get that the NYS Troopers are the ones who authorized it, so they can't do it in NYC, but this seems like a major hole in their alert system....the abductor just needs to choose the right bridge out of NYC.

I can adjust what type of vibration/ring/notification etc for specific numbers and text message sources on my SGS3. My Amber alert text messages light up the screen with a notification, but they do not make a sound or vibrate. I don't miss any alerts because I see them when I am up and about and at the same time they don't disturb me at night. Don't most cell phones do something like that? I mean, don't the Amber alerts in NY come from the the same source every time?

If all else fails, can't you put text messaging on silent without putting your alarm on silent? I thought that was a pretty standard thing.

Verno wrote on Jul 18, 2013, 12:08:Yeah, my phone sits on a dock beside my bed and acts as a clock/alarm. I don't really care where it is in the house, don't send me amber alerts at 3am

ugh, just asking for trouble.

My phone is in the kitchen when I sleep. I mostly sleep days, so it is obvious I would do this, but I also don't like being disturbed when sleeping period. People are too attached to their phones. I will often leave mine home on purpose.